Recently, I acquired a Scale Trains Operator C44-9-W with the ESU Next18 Micro DCC decoder. The eBay seller claimed that it was new - and it is certainly mint from a cosmetic perspective. When I first took it out of the package, I tested it in DC mode. There is a slight "stutter" at very low speed, which disappears with the addition of more throttle.
Next, I tried it in DCC mode and the very same behavior occurs in Speed Step 1.
In his North American locomotive encyclopedia, Mark Peterson (spookshow) said the DCC Speed Step 1 "stutter" occurred in his own STC Operator C44-9-W out of the box, but after doing an "auto-tune" (Setting CV54 to 0 and pressing F1) the stutter went away. It then runs quite smoothly.
I tried this procedure, but my unit still has this slight "hitch in it's giddy-up".
I there such a thing as a dummy plug for the Next18 socket? I would like to bypass the decoder and see if the stutter is being caused by a mechanical anomaly or slight misalignment.
